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Great for emergency kits!

I bought six of these to put in my family’s emergency kits. They work great for that purpose, especially considering the price. I wanted them so that I would not have to worry about batteries in the event of an emergency. You just crank them and they work! The package says 1 minute of cranking will give you 20 minutes of radio time. I was able to get the radio to work with only a few cranks. I didn’t time it to see how long the battery lasted, but it would have easily been enough to check the news in the event of an emergency. My seven year-old tested the flashlight for me and was able to get them to work with just a couple of cranks.

I would not recommend these for people who want a radio or flashlight for regular use.

The only warning I would give is that I thought the radios were all broken at first because there a switch on the side that switches the power source from battery to dynamo and it is set to “battery” by default. No matter how much I cranked, they didn’t work. I was about to return them as I couldn’t find anything in the instructions when I finally noticed the switch. It needs to be on “dynamo” to operate by hand cranking.

Also, when I ordered these, the photo/description made it seem like the radio and flashlight were an all-in-one unit. They are acually two seperate devices that are packaged together. I don’t care, but some people might want the all-in-one unit.

Update (2/6/2012): This item is currently on sale here for the lowest price I’ve seen.

The featured review for this product, JENSEN MR-550-DF Self-Powered AM/FM Public Alert Radio Electronics, was written by Mom of four.

The average rating for this item is 2.5 out of 5 stars, according to 2 reviews.